A look at the Panda SEO updates

Google is constantly optimising its algorithms, which can put SEO consultantsinto a flat-spin.

Google Panda, one of the most recent changes, affected a whopping 12% of search results. Not too many people would be happy to learn that they lost a massive chunk of their organic website traffic, so it’s been a race to find out what exactly the Panda updates entail and what we can do to minimise its impact.

So what did Google do?

When it comes to Panda, Google did exactly what they’ve been doing all along: they’re rewarding relevant, high quality content pages with better search result rankings. They’re also trying to root out the poor, keyword-stuffed content.

If you’ve been focusing on creating websites and content for search engines instead of actual human beings, you might have been hit by Panda. If you’ve got duplicate copy that’s simply full of different variations of the same keyword phrase, this will no longer benefit your SEO strategy.

The problem is that many people focused on keyword density and therefore created a bunch of pages with the same keywords. In the past this helped your search engine results, but seeing as this doesn’t really add value to the user, you will now be penalised for it.

What can you do now?

The good news is that you can change the course of your SEO strategy by simply evaluating your content. Google has always been very clear about what they want: Google likes high quality, properly structured content. Keywords have to be natural (it’s natural to use synonyms and use a keyword in a heading or sub-heading, it’s not natural to use the same phrase in every paragraph).

It’s time to go back to basics and focus on creating high quality content that adds value. At the end of the day, search engine users need to be converted to clients, not Google bots.